


me lleva él (o me lo llevo yo)

by laratoncita



Series: To Live & Die in LA [1]
Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Child Neglect, Domestic Violence, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Gangs, Gen, Guns, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 13:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18851773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: It’s not even close to the first gun he’s ever held.





	me lleva él (o me lo llevo yo)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [euphoriaspill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriaspill/gifts).



> title from carlos vives' "la gota fría" aka "he'll take me out or i'll take him" i want the best for cesar :( 
> 
> part one features domestic violence, so please keep yourself safe when reading.
> 
> ps. happy bday anna

Here is a truth: when Oscar hands Cesar that gun, it’s not the first time Cesar has ever handled one.

When he holds up Chivo’s and pulls the trigger, it’s not even the third or fourth time he’s had a cold press of metal against his palm.

Jamal said it best, not that Cesar knows it. He was born a Santo. He’ll probably die one, too.

* * *

_one_.

This is a memory. Not one that Cesar will remember, but one his brother knows of. One that maybe his mother remembers—maybe even his father, wherever he is.

Cesar is three years old, and it’s midsummer. Rundown as his home may be, it’s yet to reach the level of decrepit it will reach in ten years, when he is thirteen and being raised by wolves, wondering who his brother will be when he’s finally sprung. For now, it remains the safest place for a toddler who is fascinated by all things, lately, as if he’s learning the whole world all over again.

Outside of his home, and inside it, sometimes, there is something like a war going raging. It’s the same story every year, across cities and the country. Worse, still, that they live in California, where the cold offers no reprieve like it sometimes does in cities like Chicago, Detroit…

Here, the gangbanging never stops. It’s a lesson Cesar will learn later, when he finds himself with no choice to join in, but for now, it means that he has yet to differentiate between a .45 and a firework, though he’s learned to be lulled to sleep to the sound of them anyway. Perhaps it happens at midmorning, or in the afternoon, or after dinner—it doesn’t really matter. What does is that it happened. What matters is what it was.

Cesar’s mother, before she left them like her sons’ father did her, was prone to long spells of sleep. Whether that was because of her misery or her tendency to shoot up didn’t much matter to her older son or her baby daddy—for different reasons, of course. Oscar was too young to be playing house, and his father was too old to be avoiding it. Didn’t matter that they both did it, anyway.

On this midsummer day, Cesar is left alone in the house with his mother. Oscar, at twelve, will never hate himself more than he does on this day—at least, until another set of days come to pass, when Cesar is ten and then fourteen and then fifteen. That’s not what happens in this memory, though. That isn’t important just yet.

Oscar, for once, is out being a child. If Cesar could remember this, he wouldn’t blame him.

Without his built-in babysitter, however, Cesar is left to roam the house. One with sheets up instead of curtains, the linoleum needing a mopping a month ago, his mother’s bedside littered with needles. This is all he knows, and for a long time, too long, he doesn’t realize he shouldn’t know it at all.

What child doesn’t wish their mother were near, sometimes? Say Cesar goes looking for her. Say he finds her asleep and decides to wait for her to wake up. Is this not the act of any loving son?

But three year olds are curious. Cesar—beautifully bright Cesar, who will grow up to want to be an architect, who will grow up by himself sometimes and homeless others, who will love dearly and pay for it anyway—like any child might do, begins to explore. This room is new to him in many ways. Neither he or his brother can remember the days when their mother would hold them to her in her sleep, or smell their newborn heads and think, however fleetingly, that she made the right choice.

Cesar will not remember the woman she was but the woman she could have been. This may be a blessing, but it might just be mercy.

His mother does not waken when he opens her drawers and makes a bigger mess of her bedroom than it already is. It’s his father’s bedroom, too, in theory, but the man spends as many nights there as he does elsewhere, dealing with the Santos or whatever woman Oscar knows he’s running around with. That’s the point of an old lady, isn’t it? A place to come back to when someone needs it. That’s what their father thinks, at least.

She stays asleep as Cesar peeks under the bed, when he taps her on the arm and calls for her, when he crawls into the closet and starts digging through shoes and flannels and the few skimpy dresses she still owns. Doesn’t wake to the sound of her youngest coming across a heavier shoe box than the others, or to the faint creak of a door that’s needed to be oiled for months, or the footsteps that follow.

Cesar is a baby, after all. Of course he knows how to get the top off, and what else is there to do but stare down in what might be called awe at what he’ll one day identify as a 9mm? His father was a Glock man, among other things. At three, though, that doesn’t much matter to Cesar. What matters is that there’s something new and shiny practically in his lap. Doesn’t matter that it might be loaded, or that the safety might be off.

Cesar is a child. Cesar is going to be a child for much longer than anyone wants to admit.

“Qué tú haces, niño,” the man’s voice is rough. A chain-smoker. A tone that Oscar will imitate later, even as an adult, like the sound of it will make the men he speaks to listen the way it used to make him.

Cesar, fingertips barely touching this item that he doesn’t yet recognize as a gun, looks up to his father with eyes that might be full of fear. Cesar has few, if any, memories of this man. When asked he’ll say he didn’t know him, but sometimes, when he dreams, he’ll remember the scowl perfectly, the tattooed knuckles, the too-tight grip of his hands. On him or Oscar, he can’t answer. He remembers, sometimes. But only ever when he sleeps.

His father takes the gun with one hand and Cesar with the other. Swings him up by his shirt, lets him drop onto the bed his mother is still sleeping in with the other. Waves the gun afterwards and says, louder than he needs to be, “Vieja, wake the fuck up.”

Cesar crawls away from them. Knows what might follow next, as sure as he knows that if he cries when Oscar isn’t home then no one is going to care. He gets himself to the pillow his mother isn’t lying on when his father loses patience, reaching out to grab her arm and shake her awake.

His father doesn’t like to be made to wait. Tucks the gun into his waistband and grabs at her with both hands. Shouts, “Pendeja si no te levantes—” and shakes her again, harder this time, her head snapping back as she jerks awake.

“ _What_ ,” she hisses, the word an exhale, her voice thin and reedy as always. She squints up at Cesar’s father, teeth bared, and barely flinches when he takes a hand off her just to backhand her. When he lets go she stays sitting up, but she seems to be teetering on the edge of something. Cesar stays curled up as far as he can get; doesn’t realize now’s the time to slip off the bed and hide elsewhere.

“Why’s your _escuincle_ going through my _shit_?” his father says. Hand at his waist again, the other reaching out to grip his kids’ mother by her nape. An act that could have been loving, if it were two different people in a different city and a different future waiting for them. In this life, it means he doesn’t trust her not to topple off the bed mid-conversation.

“What,” she says again, “is he not _your_ kid too?”

He says, ignoring how Cesar is watching them with eyes that have seen too much for only being three, “You think I’m fucking stupid, vieja? You think I don’t know you was fucking around with some other vato while I was in the joint? Que tu crees, that I do this shit for fun? Like I ain’t fucking supporting you and your goddamn kids?”

“You call this _support_ ,” she says, words still slow but like they could be faster if she really tried. “when’s the last you took care of them, viejo? Where’s Oscar, hombre, is he witchu o que?”

He steps up close, yanks her head back so she has to look up at him. Cesar is trying to make himself very small.

“Listen to me,” he says, but his mother’s energy seems to come back in a rush.

Her voice is loud. “Why the fuck you gotta gun in my house, huh? You hoping one of your kids kills the other, yeah? O que I finally pull the fucking trigger myself, I bet you’d love that you mutha—”

He hits her again. Once, twice, closes his fist when it knocks her back into bed, and finally Cesar scrambles off, that silver flash lost to his memory as he wriggles down the edge and runs. Smacks into Oscar in the hallway, who reaches for him like it’s instinct.

“Hey, ‘manito,” he says, “whatchu—”

Their father shouts something. Cesar won’t remember it, not that it matters much. Oscar hurries to carry him to his room like he always does, and the _I’m leaving you, bitch, and your fucking kids are only half the reason_ doesn’t even register as something Cesar should be upset about.

* * *

_two_.

After their mother leaves—Oscar won’t say where, only says he doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter, anyway—Cesar finds himself alone more often.

Not _alone_ , alone. Just strangely adrift. He can’t run around Freeridge like he used to, it seems like. Oscar does whatever he does during the day but when Cesar gets home it’s straight to the table to do homework while he gets business settled with whatever Santos are over that day. Oscar, who makes him eat all his vegetables and goes in to talk to teachers and won’t let Cesar out once it gets dark. Day in and day out it chafes on him, like Oscar thinks he’s in charge all of a sudden. Cesar isn’t used to it; he almost wishes his mother were back.

“Go play out back,” Oscar tells him when he offers him his homework to check. He takes it and sets it on the cushion next to him, scanning what looks to be a list of—something. The writing doesn’t look like normal letters. He’s seen Oscar reading and writing like it is, though. Has been trying to figure out what kind of question he wants to ask about it for months.

“Can’t I go see Ruby?”

“It’ll be late soon, chiquillo,” Oscar says, and looks away from his work to muss Cesar’s hair. “Whatchu want for dinner?”

“Pupusas,” he says, and Oscar laughs.

“What, you think I can just whip those up like nothing?”

“Claudia brings them,” Cesar says, and grins back at Oscar.

“You wanna see Claudia, huh? You tryna steal my girl, compa?”

“Will she bring me pupusas if I do?”

Oscar laughs again, louder this time. “How ‘bout I ask her to bring us some this weekend, and today we have some sopes? That sound alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go outside, C,” Oscar says, giving him a gentle push towards the back door, “I’ll come get you when the food’s ready. Go run a few laps.”

“That’s not fun.”

“Find something fun, then,” Oscar says, and turns back to whatever it is he’s doing.

Cesar doesn’t bother putting up a fight about it. Knows that the sooner Oscar finishes the sooner they’ll have dinner and then maybe Oscar will put on a movie for him. He’s starting to feel a little hungry, anyway, and Oscar makes the best col with limón out of anybody. He kicks a few rocks around out back for a little while, tries climbing the big tree near the garage when he gets bored. Runs laps just to see if his brother was maybe onto something and then flops onto his back in the middle of the grass when he finds it as boring as the rest of the yard.

It’s October, so he probably should have grabbed a sweater, but if Oscar isn’t going to remind him then Cesar isn’t going to bother. He can’t even see the stars from here, too far in the city. Cesar thinks he’d like to see the stars one day, for real—like if he went down to the Grand Canyon or something. He’s pretty sure he’d be able to see them from there.

It feels like he’s been outside for ages, but when he looks towards the house the kitchen light is still off. He wants to know what Oscar’s doing, but he knows if he asks he won’t get a real answer. Worse, might get brushed off, something like _When you’re older, C, I’ll tell you everything you need to know_. What does that even _mean_?

He sits up. Stretches. Climbs to his feet and then wanders the yard, picking up any empty bottles hiding at corners and kicking spare cigarette butts into a pile so that someone—probably him, but at a later date—can toss them. The bottles he takes out behind the garage himself, cuts through it so he doesn’t have to risk cutting his hands on the rusty gate that leads to the alleyway. The inside of the garage is mess, one that Oscar makes noises about getting to when someone points it out, but has yet to actually do so.

Cesar doesn’t much see the point. When folks come over they’re usually out front, maybe inside if Cesar isn’t home. A few times over the summer Oscar would grill something for them, carne asada or burgers or whatever it was that Cesar asked for. That’s really the only time anyone ever goes to the garage, looking for charcoal and lighter fluid among the variety of things that have slowly built up there.

It has to have taken years for it to become this messy. Cesar can see several old bikes in the corner, bells on the handles and faded ribbons tied around the frame. Old Christmas decorations that look so old they may as well have been there forever. In the corners there are spiderwebs, and when Cesar turns on the single overhead light it throws everything into stark relief, the light a dull yellow that serves only to exaggerate the shadows.

He isn’t scared, of course. But there are an awful lot of things in this garage—things he doesn’t remember seeing before. That’s all.

He should probably go back inside and pester Oscar for dinner, but he said to find something fun, right? And there isn’t much fun in the yard, and since it’s getting dark he can’t leave the house. Unfair, because Cesar used to be able to come and go as he pleased. Dinner at Ruby’s or Jamal’s or Monse’s, heading home only when it was time for them to go to bed. He would come home and find his mother asleep and Oscar gone, would serve himself cereal and watch TV and fall asleep on the couch, waking only when Oscar would carry him to his room.

Maybe it’s odd, but Cesar misses that version of his brother. He’s not used to having someone after him at every turn—not to say Oscar hasn’t been there, but lately it’s like he’s _always_ there, not that anyone believes him. Geny Martinez gets a weird look on her face when he talks about it, and one of his teachers wouldn’t look at him the day after parent-teacher conferences recently, when Oscar had gone. It’s not like their mother used to go, anyway. Maybe that’s why Mrs. Gallo was weirded out.

All his friends are scared of Oscar, anyway. Call him Spooky, even. Cesar doesn’t see it. Big brothers can be annoying, sure, but what’s there to be afraid of, when Oscar’s the one checking his homework and making him breakfast or dinner and brainstorming Cesar’s next Halloween costume with him? Sure, he wishes that he wasn’t after him for every little thing lately, but that’s not something that would scare anyone. Or it shouldn’t be, at least. He tries not to think about it too hard, those things that maybe make Oscar scary to anyone who isn’t him. The tattoos, the clothes, the Santos who linger around their house…

It’s nothing. It’s _fine_.

Cesar starts going through the garage, for lack of anything else to do. He’s a curious kid, so maybe he would have gotten around to this anyway. There are several garbage bags full of old clothes, boxes of broken toys, a few baseball bats that have clearly seen better days. There’s a toolbox Cesar doesn’t remember ever seeing, a workbench covered in dust, even a pile of filthy looking blankets that he doesn’t intend to get anywhere near. He wades through the mess, just to see if there’s anything he actually likes hiding somewhere, and when his foot eventually catches on an old shoebox it makes something in his chest jump.

It’s plain, some brand that Cesar thinks must be a knock-off. He bends, picks it up, finds the weight different than if there were a pair of shoes inside of it. He opens the box. Swallows.

Cesar knows a little bit more about guns now. Has been learning to recognize them by the sound, when he’s out with his own crew and gunshots send them scattering home. He’s caught Oscar with them, even, when the Santos are over and discussing business or otherwise bumming it around. His cousins joke about getting him a strap and it never fails to piss off his brother.

Maybe they wouldn’t joke if they knew there was a Glock in the garage, looking washed out in the awful yellow light. Something about the gun seems familiar, but Cesar can’t place it. Oscar doesn’t leave guns lying around the house. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any; it just means the both of them are pretending. So there’s no way that Oscar knows about this, because—because he’s smarter than that. Even if no one else believes it, Cesar knows better than to believe he’d just leave a gun out in the garage like it’s nothing. Not in this house. Not in this neighborhood.

It comes like an instinct he can’t place. Everything about this house is a reminder of something Cesar’s better off forgetting, even if he hasn’t realized that yet. The gun is cool under his palm, too big for his palm though he thinks—however fleetingly—that maybe he’ll grow into it. He lets it sit heavy in hand. Doesn’t look it over or anything, just holds it. Knows in his gut who it belonged to even if he won’t say it out loud.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Cesar jerks. Drops the gun back into the box, flinches when Oscar comes close to him and pulls the box out of his grip as he grabs him by the back of his shirt.

“Where’d you find this?” he demands. When Cesar looks at him his eyes are huge.

“It was in here,” he says, voice small. The hand on his back has a faint tremor. Oscar releases him and brings that same hand up to rub over his jaw, his eyes still on Cesar.

“Whatchu doing in here?” he says, voice still harsh. Low, like he’s pretending at something. “I been calling you for at least five minutes.”

“I was just looking around.” He tries to keep himself from looking away from Oscar, from letting his gaze fall back to the gun. Isn’t sure why it feels important that he does that.

“Y andas de metiche, huh,” Oscar deadpans, and tucks the shoebox under his arm. “C’mon. It’s time for dinner.” He pulls Cesar close, tugs on his hair, says, “Don’t be grabbing shit that ain’t yours, hermanito,” and seems satisfied when Cesar nods and leans into him.

* * *

_three._

Something about his thirteenth birthday hits a little different.

It’s not like it’s the first Oscar’s missed; he wasn’t around for eleven or twelve, either. It just seems like thirteen is a big deal, or like it should be. Ruby’s abuelita makes him pastel de tres leches and he sits with the extended Martinez clan and Monse and Jamal and makes a wish he doesn’t repeat to anyone.

He wants Oscar back home. But life isn’t fair, and he’s learned that already.

But Oscar won’t be out for at least another year, assuming the State doesn’t try to play him. That means fourteen might also pass without his brother. Cesar still isn’t afraid of him the way half the kids he knows seem to be—his friends prime examples of it. The only one who isn’t is Monse, but he’s pretty sure she could take on a bull without breaking a sweat. He admires that about her, not that he’ll ever say it. She might get the wrong idea.

After cake and presents and screwing around in the Martinez’s backyard, though, Cesar’s left on his own again. Alone for real, this time, not like how it was when it was just him and Oscar in their rundown little house. With his brother in jail there isn’t anyone to wonder where he is. His cousins are Santos, too, only their blood runs hotter than the rest of the Diaz boys. When not causing trouble they stay chilling on the front porch or playing cards in the house, doesn’t matter if Cesar’s got a test to study for or not. The house reeks.

Cesar has an idea about what they do. It’s not like it was ever going to stay out of his home, after all. He was born into it, like Oscar was—a decision their father made for them. Cesar tries not to let the bitterness grow, but it’s growing on him anyway.

If he really wanted to, he could wander right out of Freeridge. There’s nothing to stop him. That’s what really gets him.

When he gets home the sweet-sour smell of weed is strong as ever. He can hear his cousins shooting the shit with somebody from out front, girls’ voices mixing in here and there. Geny had tried sending him off with leftovers but he said he’d rather they keep them. Maybe he’d come over the next day to pick them up. Please, Mrs. Martinez. She still looks sad when she looks at him, more than she ever has before. Like she gets it.

And nobody gets it. His friends’ parents all look at him that way, to different degrees. It’s the same look that teachers get when they realize who his older brother is, or the way Ruby or Jamal’s face will twist up when someone mentions his or Monse’s mom.

Cesar doesn’t feel like a child anymore. Hasn’t felt like one in a long time. Feels torn, really, when he sees the way other kids’ parents move and interact with them—it’s so foreign it’s laughable. What would Cesar do with a mom, anyway? He hasn’t had one in years. When he had her she was quiet. Hard to get to. If it weren’t for Oscar he would have raised himself. He’s pretty sure it wouldn’t have even been that hard.

“Qué onda, Lil’ Spooky?” says Adrian when he walks into the house, “Where you been, homie?”

“Mario’s,” Cesar says, because Mario is on good terms with all of them and he knows it’s an answer that might impress them.

“Oye, how’s he doing? He still dating that same broad?” Chucho asks. He has a girl’s name tattooed across his neck, though it doesn’t seem to mean much to him.

“Yeah.”

“Good for him,” says one of the girls, her hair long and her eyes outlined by thick black lines, “you malparidos should take a hint.”

“Whatchu complaining about, Chayo?” Chucho asks, “You saying I don’t treat you right?”

“When’s the last you saw your baby mama, eh,” she says, and Adrian gets up from the couch before a real argument can start. Follows after Cesar into the kitchen, watches him grab a can of Coke.

“Hey,” Adrian says, leaning up against the doorway, shaved head and gold chain glinting, “feliz cumple, kid.”

“Thanks.”

He rubs his nose. “You get any good presents?”

“Clothes.”

“So no?”

Cesar shrugs. Truth is he needed clothes anyway. His shoes barely fit him as is, which means he’ll need to ask for cash for new ones by the time school lets out. Doesn’t even have an extra pair for gym since the soles came off. He likes the presents. A gift is a gift.

“C’mon,” Adrian says, straightening up. “You eat already?”

“Yeah.”

“Vamos.” He turns back to the living room, says, “Chucho, you coming with?”

“For what?”

“Esa cosa que te estaba diciendo.”

“You need me to go witchu?”

“Nah.”

“Aquí nos quedamos, ‘tonces” Chucho says as Cesar walks back into the living room. He’s got his arm around Chayo. The other girl is sitting next to one of their buddies. There are several roaches, still singed, in the ashtray between them.

“Let’s go,” Adrian says, the words running together, and Cesar follows him to his car silently. Soon they’re driving out of Freeridge, towards some place that Cesar doesn’t recognize. There aren’t very many buildings, though, just more trees than he expects. They drive for what feels like forever, and then, long after they’re beyond the city limits, Adrian pulls into an abandoned lot.

There must have been a few buildings there at one point—Cesar can see the bricks, the half-destroyed concrete. A chain link at the far side of the lot is half torn, and there’s trash littered at the edges of it. He steps over rusty pieces of sheet metal and rotted plywood, following after Adrian when he heads towards one end of the place, opposite a mostly-demolished wall.

“Ten,” Adrian says, turning to him, and Cesar takes a step away from him. There’s a handgun being held out to him, shiny in the afternoon light. “Take it.”

Cesar stares at him. His cousin grins.

“You’re thirteen,” he says, “you a man now. ‘S time you learned what that means.”

“What…what am I shooting?” Cesar says, trying to keep his voice from cracking, and Adrian throws his head back to laugh.

“What, you think I’m gonna sick you on some Prophet bitch already?” he says, “Nah, güey, I gotta teach you how to aim first. You gotta good arm, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Cesar doesn’t get the chance to play sports outside of school, but he does decent. Better than the boys, though not better than Monse.

“Practically the same thing,” says Adrian. “C’mere. You see that little ‘x’ over there? The blue one?”

The same demolished wall across from them does, in fact, have a blue marking across it. It’s faded, from age or sun or both, but Cesar’s got good eyes. He can’t say how big it is, not from here, but he can see it just fine. Says so, and Adrian nods. Hands him the gun again, the metal cold in Cesar’s hands.

“Alright, primo,” Adrian says, “bring it up. To your shoulders, like that. Keep your thumb out the way.”

Cesar’s arms aren’t shaking, but it’s close. The gun feels so heavy, even if just a second ago it didn’t.

“Your finger on the trigger?”

“Yeah,” Cesar says. The little blue ‘x’ seems to be mocking him. He swallows. Wishes he were still at the Martinez’s. Wishes Oscar were here, instead.

“Okay,” Adrian says. “Don’t close your eyes, alright? Focus on the ‘x.’”

Cesar nods.

Adrian says, “C’mon, primito. Pull the trigger,” and Cesar does.

Flinches. It’s so loud, the sound of it echoing all around them. He lets his arms drop, gun pointed downwards, and Adrian reaches out to take it from him. He wonders if the metal’s hot or if it’s just him. Adrian’s grinning.

“Vamos,” he says, “let’s see how you did.”

The wall has a perfect little chunk missing, in the center of that blue paint smear. Adrian claps a hand on his shoulder. He’s still smiling real wide, and Cesar tries to mirror it. Feels his stomach sink instead, knows what all of this means for him, even if he’s spent so long pretending otherwise.

“Oye, compa,” his cousin says, “you a good shot, my man. Let’s try a couple more, just to practice. You’re a better shot than Spooky was at your age.”

“Yeah?” Cesar says, voice thick. The rocks beneath his shoes are digging into his feet uncomfortably. The sun is hot overhead, even if it’s supposed to start getting dark soon.

“Simón,” he says, shoving at his head, letting Cesar follow after him like always. “It’s in your blood, Lil’ Spooky. You’re just like the rest of us, vale?”

“Vale,” Cesar says, and takes the gun back when Adrian hands it to him.

* * *

When he pulls the trigger he means it. Nobody bothers to ask him, but it’s true.


End file.
